AT&T announced today it will deliver Cisco's TelePresence service to business customers in 23 countries by year-end.

AT&T says it is incorporating TelePresence with its own IP-network and VPN capabilities to create a teleconferencing service that will target such industries as healthcare, high-tech, retail and government. TelePresence, which debuted in October 2006, includes a 65-inch plasma display panel, as well as surround-sound audio, that delivers life-size, high-definition (1080-pixel) videoconferences between businesses. AT&T says customers can choose from the TelePresence 3000 package, which includes three display panels and costs $249,000; and the TelePresence 1000, which has one display panel and costs $59,000.

Additionally, AT&T says that one of the key advantages of its TelePresence service is that it supplies enterprise facilities with AT&T-owned Cisco equipment, which the company will be responsible for installing, monitoring and managing on behalf of the enterprise. AT&T says it also will provide remote help-desk service and on-site repair and maintenance.

"We currently have 11 Cisco TelePresence sites set up in AT&T offices throughout the United States, with plans to expand globally in the coming year," says Ronald Spears, AT&T's group president of global business services. "We're already seeing tremendous value from the ability to bring our management team together for face-to-face meetings on a regular basis, even though they are scattered across the country. Not only are we saving the time and expense associated with travel, but we are much more productive."

Late last year, Cisco began demonstrating new ways to expand its TelePresence technology, including ways carriers could connect businesses for videoconferences by using Cisco equipment on their MPLS networks, where the carriers passed the TelePresence traffic securely over their networks through VPNs.